Is Brogressiveness to Blame for Laissez Faire Date Rape Attitudes?

Women’s rights have come a long way, but laws do not necessarily change culture. This is most evident by the rash of date rapes on American campuses. A recent Newsweek report says that nearly one third of college-aged men admitted they would force a woman to have sex; but most disturbingly, they did not consider it to be “rape.”

Young Men Can’t Grasp What Rape Means

The survey reported that 31.7 percent of men would act on “intentions to force a woman to sexual intercourse” knowing they would not get caught; yet, just 13.6 percent said they had “intentions to rape a woman” if there weren’t any consequences.

The researchers of the study say the difference depends on whether or not they defined what is regarded as sexual assault, versus simply calling it rape. For this survey, the authors explained rape as “intercourse by use of force or threat of force against a victim’s wishes.”

The researchers asked 86 male college students, most of whom were White, at one university. Besides asking them about forced rape and sexual intercourse, the surveyors were tested on whether or not they held belligerent views toward women. The authors admit their sample size was small, but lead researcher, Sarah Edwards, told Newsweek, “the No. 1 point is there are people that will say they would force a woman to have sex but would deny they would rape a woman.”

Over One Fifth of Women Will Be Sexually Assaulted in College

A study by the Associate of American Universities, found that 23 percent of female undergraduate students experienced sexual assault since enrolling in college. The researchers asked over 150,000 students from 27 colleges and universities. Moreover, these statistics only account for reported assaults; many go unreported and unpunished.

Is “Brogressiveness” to Blame?

“The Brogressive loves Reddit, but hates Tumblr because it is “too whiney.” The Brogressive #FeelsTheBern, but wrote an angry Facebook status about the #BlackLivesMatter protestors for “interrupting” Bernie Sanders in Seattle. The Brogressive is the college-student-turned overly-serious D.C. intern, who will politely clap when Senator Elizabeth Warren talks about equal pay for equal work, but is alarmingly quick to defend rapists, asking questions about false accusations. The Brogressive is all defensive wonk talk and no action, because at the end of the day, he does not need to work towards justice, since he already benefits from systems of power.”

With liberalism becoming the norm, sexists and racists put on a false cloak of progressiveness in order to fit in, and that means pretending to care about women’s rights whilst creating a new rape culture with the word “rape” taken out. Somehow, these men have deluded themselves into thinking that consent is all relative. The scariest part is that he is much harder to stomp out than a typical “chauvinist pig” because he holds superficial liberal views.

“The natural enemy of the Brogressive is the Intersectional Feminist. When the two come in conflict, the Brogressive retreats into his protective cave of White Male Privilege, accusing the Intersectional Feminist of being a distraction to the True Progressive Cause (which is, of course, getting Julian Assange out of Sweden so he can get away from those pesky rape charges). The Brogressive, when confronted with his selfishness, will respond with privilege-denying epithets, such as “I can’t be racist; I sleep with women of color all the time!” and “Calm your tits; I was just JOKING when I talked about prison rape!” and ‘You feminists are so oversensitive! Why do you hate men?'”

These bleak college rape statistics show that the only way to prevent sexual assault is with a major attitude shift from young men who live in a rape-free fantasyland. But until then, women should learn to defend themselves and spot the Brogressive before agreeing to go on a date.

Do you think Brogressive attitudes are to blame for neo-rape culture?

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Zara is a freelance writer and filmmaker who has worked for numerous magazines and news sites. When not coming up with puns or writing screenplays, she enjoys having blind children read to her and donating plasma TVs.
Follow her on Twitter: @zarazhi